Saturday, October 03, 2009

Some Real Old School Drawing

This may look superficially modern and even influenced by anime but it sure as hell is drawn well all around.Saskia draws for real, no cheating. Here's someone who does life drawing and then applies what she learns from it to her cartoon drawings. Boy can she draw hands just for one thing.She can draw difficult shapes from any angle. Look at those feet solidly planted on the ground in perspective.This is cartoony but full of solid shapes. Again, the hands are genius. So are the legs and feet. They have lots of style but aren't just straight lines or mathematical curves without form or perspective. (nice color too)I don't know anything about her except that she is amazingly talented and skilled.I'm, not sure if it's all just natural ability, whether she taught herself, or whether she went to a really good school and they drilled classic drawing principles into her. If so, I hope she tells us where she went!It's funny to see anime influence actually drawn with anatomy and perspective - and having the facial features fit into the skull and flesh.But she's not just superficially copying anime (like I tried to do). It's just a part of her influence among other influences that she'd have to tell you. And good old-fashioned strong principles of drawing.These drawings make me feel guilty that I am trying to teach people to be able to draw simple solid balls, pears and spaghetti arms and legs.Saskia should be teaching people. She's drawing for real.A lot of this stuff is drawn on the computer which is even more astonishing to me.

It's funny to see her draw her influences better than the source material.Style and knowledge perfectly woven together.

Thanks for posting stuff like this John. It's obvious you have a very specific reference point for your work, and often times (for a novice like me) its hard to interpret your lessons other than straight cartooning dogma. I love seeing what else you consider up to snuff in cartooning.

It’s not that you teaching to draw shapes and spaghetti hands is wrongAnd her drawing anatomically right characters is right, they are both equally impotent. I have learned from you allot in the past month.I spent 2 years only practicing real life drawing, and had good and bad teachers. And although I am not as half as good as her, I can say I know a few things about human anatomy. But what most artists who have control over real life drawing and anatomy, lack in the realm of human exasperation.And that is most impotent to animators, and that I was only capable to learn from things such as Mickey Mouse characters sheets. Characters that were made from round basic shapes, this could be applied later to more realistic characters.

She does do some excellent work. Not only is everything solidly drawn as you said, each figure is full of complex emotion as well. It takes lots of practice and talent to even begin to render that on paper.

I'd also like a link to her site. I'd also like to know how much time she spends on each picture. Does she labour for several hours or does it all happen rather quickly for her?

Should we all aspire to be more like her or is that an impossibility, sort of like trying to be like Milt Kahl?

Thank you John, for posting this outstanding example of what can be achieved once there is a solid understanding of good drawing principles and construction...it's inspiring to know how the work will pay off. :)

I think that a second-nature sense of perspective can only be achieved by a lot of discipline. Just plain hard work.

I don't think anyone should feel less of an artist by seeing this kind of work... they should just feel like they didn't dedicate nearly as much time to drawing from life as someone else did. Of course it's still damn amazing that someone can force themselves to practice so much.

These drawings make me feel guilty that I am trying to teach people to be able to draw simple solid balls, pears and spaghetti arms and legs

The ball pear and spaghetti arms is a great tool to use underneath for structure, but it can also be a surface style. She clearly took a lot of life drawing which is essential in creating a personal style akin to one's own hand-writing. It's also an American invention and not something you're going to see the rest of the world trying to follow when they have other things they've grown up with and were influenced by, as I believe Saskia is from Germany. Especially in a place like Europe who is filled to the gills with culture to influence and are much less limited by a secular audience who allow their animators to evolve much faster in ways different from ours.

There are some, but I rarely tend to see this style with european animators who have very solid drawing skills and are able to create a personal style that doesn't derive from obvious ball shapes which almost seem child-like in comparison, it comes from something deeper, which makes a lot of sense as that style tends to garner mostly to a children's audience, that's what made Ren and Stimpy so arresting. Children's animation here is so dominate though, so it's not surprising that it's all we ever use to animate or see animation with.

One thing I really have a problem with right now in American Animation is that there isn't a broad spectrum of animation types or styles or flavors, we either have kids, or adult which in itself is incredibly limited and 80% child-friendly, with nothing in between. We seem to be the only one with this problem, and it feels like we're being held back by what's possible. Very few gems like the visually driven Superjail ever surface and I have to give a lot of love to Adult Swim for letting those shows happen despite their low budgets. It's so black and white, even our storylines are black and white. Never any kind of ethical dilemmas or anything to make us think, or entertain us in a totally different way, to go against norms. It really drives me nuts that we need yet another uncreative, unimaginative factory output show by Seth McFarland instead of allowing someone completely different, fresh-faced with fresh ideas onto the scene. That would be too risky.

While anime may not always have an appealing style, or may be at times be animated horribly, to not look at the storyline is to not see the forest for the trees. In Japan, manga is the center of their cultural universe, it affects everything. There is a direct line-feed from media to audience back to media. Conventions full of fan-made comics for the shows they love without fear of copyright infringements coming down on them. While copyright laws do exist, there is an unwritten agreement between creators not to make large sum profits off the original artist's work. Rather for the purpose to get themselves out there, to get known, to get into the business and create something new and exciting for them and their audience. I can't speak for every single thing out there, but they do have some pretty intense and amazing storylines in a wide range of subject matter; deep, thought-provoking, hilarious, different, beyond anything attempted state-side, but also far less issues when it comes to publishing. By trying to copy the style and emulate it as with your previous posts is completely short-sighted and only going to the surface, underneath is a different world filled with wide, varied fascinating ideas.

I've been following Saskia for a long time now, she has a blog here: http://coyotesaskia.blogspot.com/

The lines are so confident...good lord. Because I draw almost entirely with my tablet anymore, it can cover up my hard, shaky lines.

I don't mind the manga/anime influence, because her drawings have the sort of fluidity and life I expect out of American or European cartoon drawings. All I want to see out of manga/anime is some elasticity, and this is like an oasis or something. Thanks a bunch for posting this artist's work, John.

I see she loves drawing wide grins a lot which isn't something you see in anime. I like how she drawings in more human proportions then cartoons but there is caricature in the proportions unlike the terrible "Doll" proportions in the human characters of Disney.

She seems to be a fan of Final Fantasy games judging by one of the pages of drawings.

i am trying to be a cartoonist/comic artist and was wondering if you would look over some of my work. reading your blogs i am far from anything you'd call good, but i've been drawing ever since i came out the womb. i read one of scott mcclounds books on comics that gave me some insight, but would like professional input. please and thank you.

It is impressive to see an anime fan that can draw difficult poses adiquitly and the details on these are well done b ut frankly none of these pictures appeal to me, more pears and spaghetti! Don't feel ashamed to teach the old way as its more appealing, easier to teach, easier to learn, easier to draw, and imagine trying to hand-animate some of these characters while maintaining detail! I am more of a "less can be more" person.

Haha, i was wondering why my page count suddently went up. Now i have the reason ...

And here i am always drawing the same subject and type of girls and still get such a top spot. How do i deserve this attention ? But of course thank you very much, I´m feeling very honoured :)))) I stumbled over this blog a few times from other cartoonsites !!

My major influences are/were animation, comics and videogames ( Super Mario !! ). My Mother did paint as a hobby so it was clear for me that i´m doig art aswell.My "Mentor" was probably one of my best friends Oksana ( http://baka-okha.blogspot.com/ ), whom i met with 15/16 at an german anime-community. She was saying that no matter what style you are aiming at, there should be a solid foundation. Another ( kind of trivial ) reason for me to train my skills was to do good fanart from "Resident Evil" ( yeah, this game where you shoot Zombies ;) I still love the series !! ). As this requires beeing able to draw more than just pretty faces i did practise a lot.During the last years I have been at a point where I was on a "realism only" mindset... didn´t hold on for thaat long, but i sure learned a lot ;)

Educationwise, i went to an Art related High School where i made my major in Fashion Design. After that i studied Design at a small College( http://www.hawk-hhg.de/gestaltung/default.php ) . Had Life Drawing there, which was awesome :) I was also doing a longer internship in a 3D Studio.

The other stuff i learned mostly through observing my fav artists, Comics, games, animation, learning from studying anatomy books and whatever... Internet is really a great source, i also stumbled ca. 1 year ago ove the disney handouts :) Really helped a lot and it is was fun to learn something about actual animation foundations :DDD

I personally think the best one can do is having fun with what you are doing. I wouldn´t have ever practised anatomy myself when it wouldn´t be so much fun. I really do enjoy drawing the human figure. Also in terms of style, i suppose its wise to have some respect for the stylistic features that you want to implent into your own works :) I´m very influenced from the asian way of approaching animation, comic and storytelling. There is just so much crazy talent going on, so many good artists...

I personally don´t care thaaat much if others have problems with some parts japanese animation or think its of low quality. I know what i like about it, that is what matters to me ! In the end i´m just drawing for myself.

@SoleilSmile:I'm curious what made you think she went to Art Center. I have been going there and honestly 90% of the entertainment art is people that dress up generic mannequins in different costumes. She is clearly channeling something different and (in my opinion) much better. Really though, my point is that art school will not make you a great artist. Hard (intelligent) work, dedication, and taste will. Mr. John K.'s great blog is testament to that. Just my 2 cents.

She does haves some really amazing work. Which reminds me I need to do more realism. I miss it muchly... I love the way she draws her characters as though they're melting, but they have a solid structure as well.

Speaking of which, think you could stop by my blog and give me some much needed crits on fluidity? I'd love to get better at it.